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INDIAN MIGRATIONS, 



AS EVIDENCED BY LANGUAGE: 



compbising 

The Huron-Cherokee Stock: The Dakota Stock: The Algonkins 
The Chahta-Muskoki Stock: The Moundbuieders : 
The Iberians. 



By HOKATIO HALE, M. A. 



A Paper read at a Meeting of the American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science, held at Montreal, in August, 1882. 



Reprinted from tne "American Antiparian" lor January and April, 1883. 



CHICAGO: 
Jameson & Morse, Printers, 162-164 Clark St. 
1883. 



INDIAN MIGRATIONS, 



AS EVIDENCED BY LANGUAGE: 

comprising 

The Huron-Cherokee Stock: The Dakota Stock: The Algonkins 
The Chahta-Muskoki Stock: The Moundbuilders : 
The Iberians. 

By HORATIO HALE, M. A. 



A Paper read at a Meeting of the American Association for the Advance 
ment of Science, held at Montreal, in August, 1882. 



Reprinted from tie "American Antiparian" lor January and April, 1883, 



CHICAGO: 
Jameson & Morse, Printers, 162-184 Ceark St. 
1883. 



Ill MIGRATIONS, AS EVIDENCED HI LANGUAGE. 



The only satisfactory evidence of the affiliation or direct rela- 
tionship of two communities, apart from authentic historical 
records, is to be found in their speech. When the languages 
of two nations or tribes show a close resemblance in grammar 
and vocabulary, we may at once infer a common descent, if 
not of the whole, at least of some portion of the two commu- 
nities. This is a rule which, so far as experience goes, admits 
of no exception. The cases which are frequently referred to, 
of negroes in the West Indies and . the Southern States who 
speak English, French, Spanish and Dutch, and of Indians in 
Canada and Mexico who speak French and Spanish, are not 
exceptions, but may, in fact, be reckoned among the strongest 
evidences in proof of the rule; because we know historically 
that, in every one of these cases, there has been not merely an 
intimate connection of these negroes and Indians with people 
of the nations whose languages they have adopted, but a large 
infusion of the blood of those nations. It may be affirmed 
with confidence that no contrary example can be shown. If 
an explorer should find in the heart of Africa, or in some newly 
discovered island of Australasia, a black and woolly-haired 
people whose language showed in its numerals, its pronouns, 
its names for near relationships, and the conjugation of its 
verbs, indubitable traces of resemblance to the Arabic tongue, 
we should infer without hesitation not merely that this people 
had been at some time visited by Arabs, but that an Arabian 
people had been in some way intermingled among them for 
generations, and had left, along with their language, a large in- 
fusion of Arab blood. If, besides the resemblance of speech, 
there should be a resemblance of physical traits, — if the people 
not only spoke a language similar to the Arabic, but had the 
stature, features, complexion and hair of Arabs, — we should 
entertain no doubt that they were, in the main, of Arabian 
descent. 

When the evidence of language has satisfied us that two 
communities are thus connected, our next inquiry relates to the 
nature of the connection. Is one of them derived from the 
other, and if so, which was the ancestral stock ? Or is this con- 
nection that of brotherhood, and do they deduce their origin 



2 



and their languages, like the Latin nations of southern Europe, 
from a common ancestry ? The clues which will lead us to the 
solution of these questions must again be sought in the evi- 
dence of language, and generally in minute antl careful com- 
parison of words and grammatical forms; but this evidence 
may be reinforced by that of tradition, which, when it exists, 
will usually be found to correspond with that of language. The 
Hindoo tradition, which makes the Aryans enter India from 
the northwest in prehistoric times, and gradually overrun the 
northern portion of the peninsula, accords strictly, as every 
scholar knows, with the deductions drawn from the study 
of the languages of that region. So, too, the Polynesian race, 
which peopled the groups of the Pacific Ocean, from the Sand- 
wich Islands on the north to New Zealand on the south, and 
from Easter Island in the east to the Depeyster Group, four 
thousand miles distant in the west, is traced back, by the joint 
evidence of language and tradition, to a starting point or cen- 
ter of migration in the Samoan or Navigator Islands, near the 
western limit of this vast region. Though the emigration 
which peopled some of the eastern groups must have taken 
place at least three thousand years ago, the fact of its occur- 
rence is unquestionable. This instance is made the more nota- 
ble by the circumstance that neither the source nor the direction 
of the migration is such as merely geographical considerations 
would have led us to conjecture. New Zealand and the 
Sandwich Islands are by far the largest groups of Polynesia. 
When first known to Europeans, each of these groups con- 
tained a much greater population than the mother group of 
Samoa. From either of them the usual course of winds and 
currents would carry a fleet of canoes to the other islands of 
Polynesia far more readily than from the Navigator Islands, 
whence the voyager must make his way to the eastern groups 
directly in the teeth of the trade-winds. These considerations, 
however, have had no weight in the minds of ethnologists 
against the decisive test of language, reinforced, as it is, by 
the evidence of native tradition. 

In studying the languages of this continent we are naturally 
led to inquire how far we can apply these tests of language 
and tradition in tracing the connection and migration of the 
Indian tribes. It is evident at once that in making such inqui- 
ries we are confined in each case to tribes speaking languages 
of the same stock. For though there is, unquestionably, a 
certain general congruity of structure among Indian languages 
of different stocks, sufficient to strengthen the common opin- 
ion, derived from physical and mental resemblances, which 
classes the people who speak them in one race, yet this con- 



3 



gruity does not comprise that distinct and specific similarity 
in words and forms which is required as a proof of direct affil- 
iation. In the present state of philological science we must, 
therefore, as has been said, limit our inquiries to the tribes of 
each distinct linguistic family, including, however, such as may 
possibly have been formed by the intermixture of tribes of dif- 
ferent stocks. 

The group of kindred tribes to which, in pursuing these in- 
quiries, my attention was first directed, was that which is com- 
monly known as the Huron-Iroquois family, but which I should 
be rather inclined, for reasons that will be hereafter stated, to 
denominate the Huron-Cherokee stock. A peculiar interest 
attaches to the aboriginal nations of this kinship. Surrounded 
as they usually were, in various parts of the continent, by 
tribes of different lineage, — Algonkin, Dakota, Choctaw, and 
others, — they maintained everywhere a certain pre-eminence, 
and manifested a force of will and a capacity for political 
organization which placed them at the head of the Indian com- 
munities in the whole region extending from Mexico to the 
Arctic circle. Their languages show, in their elaborate mech- 
anism, as well as in their fulness of expression and grasp of 
thought, the evidence of the mental capacity of those who 
speak them. Scholars who admire the inflections of the Greek 
and Sanscrit verb, with their expressive force and clearness, 
will not be less impressed with the ingenious structure of the 
verb in Iroquois. It comprises nine tenses, three moods, the 
active and passive voices, and at least twenty of those forms 
which in the Semitic grammars are styled conjugations. The 
very names of these forms will suffice to give evidence of the 
care and minuteness with which the framers of this remarkable 
language have endeavored to express every shade of meaning. 
We have the diminutive and augmentative forms, the cis-loca- 
tive and trans-locative, the duplicative, reiterative, motional, 
causative, progressive, attributive, frequentative, and many 
others. I am aware that some European and American schol- 
ars, shocked to find their own mother-tongues inferior in this 
respect not only to the Sanscrit and Greek, but even to the 
languages of some uncivilized tribes, have adopted the view 
that inflections are a proof of imperfection and a relic of 
barbarism. They apparently forget that if they vindicate 
in this way a superiority for their native idiom over the 
Greek and the Iroquois, they reduce it at the same time, not 
only below the Mandchu and Polynesian tongues, but beneath 
even the poverty-stricken speech of the Chinese.* 

* In support of the opinion expressed in the text, I may cite two very eminent author- 
ities. Professor Max Mliller, who acquired a knowledge of the Iroquois language from a 
Mohawk undergraduate at Oxford (now Dr. Oronhyatekba, of London, Ont.), remarks in a 



4 



The constant tradition of the Iroquois represents their ances- 
tors as emigrants from the region north of the great lakes, 
where they dwelt in early times with their Huron brethren. 
This tradition is recorded, with much particularity,' by Cadwal- 
lader Golden, Surveyor General of New York, who in the early 
part of the last century composed his well-known "History of 
the Five Nations. " It is told in a somewhat different form by 
David Cusick, the Tuscarora historian, in his "Sketches of An- 
cient History of the Six Nations;" and it is repeated by Mr. 
L. H. Morgan in his now classical work, "The League of the 
Iroquois," for which he procured his information chiefly among 
the Senecas. Finally, as we learn from the narrative of the 
Wyandot Indian, Peter Clarke, in his book entitled "Origin 
and Traditional History of the Wyandotts," the belief of the 
Hurons accords in this respect with that of the Iroquois. Both 
point alike to the country immediately north of the St. Law- 
rence, and especially to that portion of it lying east of Lake 
Ontario, as the early home of the Huron-Iroquois nations. 

How far does the evidence of language, which is the final 
test, agree with that of tradition ? To answer this question 
we have to inquire which language, the Huron or the Iroquois, 
bears marks of being oldest in form, and nearest to the mother 
language, — or, in other words, to the original Huron-Iroquois 
speech. Though we know nothing directly of this speech, yet, 
when we have several sister-tongues of any stock, we. can 
always reconstruct, with more or less completeness, the original 
language from which they were derived; and we know, as a 
general rule, that among these sister-tongues, the one which is 
most complete in its form and in its phonology is likely to be 
nearest in structure, as well as in the residence of those who 
speak it, to this mother speech. Thus, if history told us noth- 
ing on the subject, we should still infer that, among what are 
termed the Latin nations of Europe, the Italians were nearest 
to the mother people, — and, in like manner, that the original 
home of the Aryans was not among the Teutons or the Celts, 
but somewhere between the speakers of the Sanscrit and of 
the Greek languages. 

Our materials for a comparison of the Huron and the Iro- 
quois are not as full as could be desired. They are, however, 

letter to the author; " To my mind, the structure of such a language as the Mohawk is 
quite sufficient evidence that those who worked out such a work of art were powerful 
reasoners and accurate classifiers." Not less emphatic is the judgment expressed by Pro- 
fessor Whitney, in his admirable work on the "Life and Growth of Language." Speaking 
generally of the structure of American languages, but in terms specially applicable to 
those of the Huron-Cherokee stock, he observes : "Of course there are infinite possibilities 
of expressiveness in such a structure ; and it would only need that some native-American 
Greek race should firise, to fill it full of thought and fancy, and put it to the uses of a 
noble literature, and it would be rightly admired as rich and flexible, perhaps beyond any- 
thing else that the world knew." See also the excellent works of the distinguished mis- 
sionary author, the Rev. J. A. Cuoq, of Montreal, on the Iroquois and Algonquin languages, 
in which abundant examples are gi ven of the richness and power of those tongues. 



quite sufficient to show that the Huron represents the older 
form of their common speech. A single point of phonology 
may be deemed decisive of this question. The Iroquois dia- 
lects, as is well known, have no labial letter. Neither m, b, or 
p is found in any Iroquois w r ord, and the language is spoken with- 
out closure of the lips. But in the Huron speech, or rather (as 
there were at least two distinct dialects of this speech), in that 
form of it which is spoken by the Wyandots (or Wendat), and 
which bears the marks of being the oldest form of this lan- 
guage, the sound of the m is frequently heard. A compari- 
son of the words in which this sound occurs with the corres- 
ponding words of the Iroquois dialects, shows beyond question 
that this sound once existed in the mother-tongue from which 
these words were derived, and has been lost in the Iroquois. 
We find that this Huron m has at least five distinct sounds or 
combinations of sounds to represent it in the Iroquois. By 
this fact we are reminded of the similar fate which has befallen 
in English the Teutonic guttural ch (as heard in the German 
words Bitch, Loch, lachen, &c), which, after surviving for a 
time in the Anglo-Saxon language, has disappeared from the 
English speech. In some English words, as we know, its 
place has been taken by the palatal k; Buck has become hook, 
machen is changed to make, and so on. In other cases it is 
converted to tchj the German pech is our pitch, the German 
clach is our thatch. In still other cases it is changed toy, as in 
laugh from lachen, soft from sacht; while in many more in- 
stances it has been dropped altogether as a distinct element, its 
former existence being merely indicated by its influence on the 
sound of the preceding vowel , — as in thought from the German 
dachte, high from the German hoch, might from the German 
macht, and so on, in numerous words which will occur to every 
student of etymology. In close accordance with this treat- 
ment of the German guttural by the English organs of 
speech is that of the Huron labial by the Iroquois. In 
many instances the Huron m becomes w in Iroquois. Thus 
tementaye, " two days, " becomes in Onondaga tewentage; 
yameheon, " dead, " is in Cayuga yaweheon; skatamend- 
jdwe, " one hundred, " becomes in Mohawk askatawanidwi. 
Sometimes the sound of the nasal n (resembling the French 
nasal in bon), is introduced before the wj thus the Huron 
oma, "to-day," becomes onioa in Mohawk; the pronominal 
prefix homa, "their," becomes honwa. Frequently this latter 
combination is further reinforced by the hard palatal ele- 
ment k or g, after the nasal; thus the Huron rume, "man," 
becomes in Mohawk rungwe or ruflkwe; "he loves us," which 
is somandoronkwa in Huron, becomes sonhwanoronhwa in 



Mohawk. Sometimes the m is replaced by a nasal followed 
by an aspirate; thus somcia, "thou alone," becomes sonhda. 
The Huron mema, "tobacco," is singularly transformed. The 
first m becomes in Iroquois oy, and the second is represented 
by the combination nkw, thus giving us the Mohawk oyenhwa. 
In these instances the Huron words are undoubtedly the origi- 
nal forms, from which the Iroquois words are derived. Some 
other evidences of a similar kind, which show that the Huron 
is the elder speech, will be hereafter adduced, though they 
may perhaps hardly be deemed necessary. 

Our next inquiry relates to the course which the emigration 
pursued after crossing the St. Lawrence. The Iroquois proper 
(omitting for the present the Tuscaroras), are divided into five 
tribes or "nations," speaking dialects so dissimilar that the 
missionaries have been obliged to treat them as distinct lan- 
guages. The difference between the Mohawk and the Seneca 
tongues is at least as great as that which exists between the 
Spanish and Portuguese languages. These five tribes, when 
they were first known to Europeans, occupied the northern 
portion of what is now the State of New York, their territory 
extending from the Hudson river on the east to the Genesee 
on the west. The easternmost tribe was the Mohawk. Directly 
west of them lay the Oneidas, followed in regular order by the 
Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. Of these tribes the Sene- 
ca was much the largest, comprising nearly as many people 
as all the rest together. The Onondagas were the central, and, 
to a certain extent, the ruling nation of the league. If we 
had not the evidence of language and tradition to guide us, 
the natural presumption would be that either the Senecas or 
the Onondagas were the parent tribe, of which the others were 
offshoots. But tradition and language alike award this posi- 
tion to the Mohawks. This nation was styled in council the 
"eldest brother" of the Iroquois family. The native historian 
Cusick distinctly affirms that the other tribes broke off from 
the Mohawk people, one after another, and as each became a 
separate nation, "its language was altered." The words thus 
quoted express briefly, but accurately, the necessary result of 
several generations of separate existence. It remains to show 
how the test of language confirms the tradition, and proves 
beyond question that the course of migration flowed from east 
to west. The following comparative list is derived from vocab- 
ularies, all of which have been recently taken down by the 
writer from the lips of members of the various tribes. The 
Wyandot words are placed first, as being probably nearest to 
the original forms in the parent language. Then follow the 
five Iroquois tribes, in regular order, from east to west; and 



7 

finally the Tuscarora, a sister, rather than a daughter, of the 
Mohawk, closes the list. In this comparison, certain inflec- 
tions of the verb "to love" have been selected, as showing how 
the course of derivation is disclosed both by the changes of 
sounds and by the grammatical variations.* 

It would not be easy to find a more striking and beautiful 
example than the annexed list furnishes of the operation of a 
well-known linguistic law. I refer to the law of "phonetic 
decay," as it is called by Professor Max Miiller, who has de- 
scribed its origin and effect, with his usual clearness of style 
and fulness of illustration, in the Second Series of his "Lect- 
ures on Language." He there shows how words, either by 
lapse of time or change of locality, are apt to undergo a course 
of reduction and contraction, due to the desire of economizing 
effort in speaking. The words are softened and worn away, 
like stones undergoing what geologists call the process of 
degradation. Thus, to adopt and extend some of his examples, 
the German Habicht becomes the Anglo-Saxon hafoc, and the 
English hawk; the German sprechen becomes the Anglo-Saxon 
sprecan, and the English speak; the German haupt becomes 
the Anglo-Saxon heafod, and the English head. So, drawing 
our examples from words of another origin, the Latin scutarius 
becomes in old French escuyer, in English squire; the Latin 
capitulum becomes in French ehapitre, in English chapter, and 
so on. Referring to our table of Huron-Iroquois derivatives, 
it will be noticed that the Wyandot heskwandoronkwa is soft- 
ened in Mohawk to ehtshisewanorbnkwa by a uniform process 
of what may be termed deliquescence. The initial aspirate of 
the Wyandot word is dropped (or perhaps changed in position); 
the first k is softened to tsh, precisely as the name of the great 
orator, which in Latin was Kikero, becomes Tshitshcro in Ital- 
ian pronunciation; the sibilant s changes its place, and the 
hard sound of nd becomes simply n. The still softer Oneida 
utterance contracts the first three syllables of the Mohawk 
(eh-tshi-se) to cts } and changes the trilled r to the liquid /, giv- 
ing us etswanolonkiva. The Onondaga, pursuing the same 
process, changes the initial ets to the still softer hese, and drops 
the r altogether, still retaining, however, — though with a slight 
change, — the vowels which preceded and followed it, and thus 
converts the word to hescwanoenkwa. The Cayuga, following 
in due order, contracts these two vowels into one, and converts 
the initial hese into ses, but introduces, by a slight reversion to 

*In the orthography followed in this paper the consonants have generally the same 
sounds as in English, and the vowels the same sounds as in Italian and German. The j 
is sounded as in French, or like the English z in azure. The German guttural ch is repre- 
sented by Till or (when softened) by gh. The French nasal n is expressed by the Spanish n. 
The short u (as it is called) in but is denoted by u. The emphatic syllable of a word is 
indicated by an acute accent, or, when the vowel is long, by the usual horizontal mark 
above it, as a, e, &c. 



8 



TUSCAROBA. 


Q 5 Q « ^ Q 

^ *S - *\ *S *S1S ?S ri£ ^ ^ rfiS 


Seneca. 


kondhkwa 

hen dh kwa 

yandhkwa 

sonkwanovkwa 

seswandhkwa 

sakondhkwa 

etshindhkwa 

skwandhkwa 

seswandhkwa 

esandhkwa 

onwandhkwa 

onkinohkwa 

onwandhkwa 


Cayuga. 


kondhhkwa 

hendhhkwa 

yandhhkwa 

sohkwandhhkwa 

seswanohhkwa 

sakondhhkwa 

akindhhkwa 

skwandhhkwa 

seswanohhkwa 

kaesanohhkwa 

hohwanohhkwa 

onkinohhkwa 

ohwatin dhh kwa 


Onondaga. 


konoehkwa 

henoc'hkwa 

hianoehkwa 

sohkwanoehkwa 

hesewanoehkwa 

sakonoehkwa 

akinoehkwa 

skwanoe'hkwa 

hesexuanoe'hkwa 

esanoehkwa 

hohwanochkwa 

onkinohhkwa 

hayakonoihkwa 


Oneida. 


§ * § ^ 3 I ^ i* 3 ^ ' « « 

^ J * S • 1 « .5 § S * - § a "5 
5 § .« 1 ^ S 5 « s i< 

r^S <: ^ fa, S ^ Vi ^ ^ <^ 


Mohawk. 


5 5 8 > s ^ ^ 5 51 ^ '8 

! ! 1 1 .s | 1 s 3 1 i | 4 1 

§ | | '1 "3 "S I 1 ^ 1 1 11 


Wyandot. 


§ - s « *r ^ '1 I T «s '* *? 

1 1 ^ I 1 ! I 1 s t 1 1 

S s £ *s *S 5 5 <s 


ll 


I love thee 
I love him 
He loves thee 
He loves us 
He loves you 
He loves them 
We love them 
Ye love me 
Ye love him 
They love thee 
They love him 
They love us 
They love them 



9 



harshness of utterance, an aspirate after the following nasal, 
giving us seswationhkwa. And, finally, the Senecas of the 
extreme west drop that unnecessary aspirate, and in lieu of 
the difficult Wyandot word heskwandordnkwa , and the seven- 
syllabled Mohawk term, ektskisewanoronkwa, give us a word of 
four syllables, seswanonkwa, quite as easily spoken and at least , 
as euphonious as its English translation, "he loves you." No 
person accustomed to the study of linguistics will doubt, after 
carefully examining this comparative list, that the Mohawk 
presents the earliest form of the Iroquois speech, and is itself 
a later form than the Wyandot. It will be equally evident 
that the Tuscarora, though closely allied to the Mohawk, is 
rather a sister than a daughter language. It is clear that the 
separation of the Tuscaroras from the proper Iroquois took 
place in early times, and that each language has since pursued 
its own course of development, — that of the Iroquois in their 
chosen abode along the Mohawk River, and that of the Tus- 
caroras in their southern asylum, between the Roanoke and 
the Alleghany Mountains. 

Following the same course of migration from the northeast 
to the southwest, which leads us from the Hurons of eastern 
Canada to the Tuscaroras of central North Carolina, we come 
to the Cherokees of northern Alabama and Georgia. A con - 
nection between their language and that of the Iroquois has 
long been suspected. Gallatin, in his "Synopsis of Indian Lan- 
guages," remarks on this subject : "Dr. Barton thought that 
the Cherokee language belonged to the Iroquois family, and 
on this point I am inclined to be of the same opinion. The 
affinities are few and remote, but there is a similarity in the 
general termination of syllables, in the pronunciation and ac- 
cent, which has struck some of the native Cherokees. We 
have not a sufficient knowledge of the grammar, and generally 
of the language, of the Five Nations to decide that question. " 

The difficulty arising from this lack of knowledge is now 
removed; and with it all uncertainty disappears. The simi- 
larity of the two tongues, apparent enough in many of their 
words, is most strikingly shown, as might be expected, 
in their grammatical structure, and especially in the affixed 
pronouns, which in both languages play so important a part. 
The resemblance may, perhaps, best be shown by giving the 
pronouns in the form in which they are combined with a suf- 
fixed syllable to render the meaning expressed by the English 
self ox alone, — "I myself," or "I alone," &c. 



10 



IROQUOIS. CHEROKEE. 
I alone akonhaa akwtinsun 

Thou alone sonhaa tsunstiri 
He alone raonhaa (Jiaonhad) uwasun 

We two alone onkinonhaa ginunsufi 
Ye two alone senonhaa (Huron, stofihad) istfonsfyn 
We alone (pi.) onkionhda ikunstifi 
Ye alone tsionhaa (Huron, tsonliad) itsunsun 

They alone rononhaa (liononhad) iinunsun 
If from the foregoing list we omit the terminal suffixes haa 
and sun, which differ in the two languages, the close resem- 
blance of the prefixed pronouns is apparent. Equally evident 
is the fact that the Cherokee pronouns, particularly in the third 
person singular and plural, and in the first person dual and 
plural, are softened and contracted forms of the Iroquois pro- 
nouns. 

To form the verbal transitions, as they are termed, in which 
the action of a transitive verb passes from an agent to an ob- 
ject, both languages prefix the pronouns, in a combined form, 
to the verb, saying, "I-thee love," "thou-me lovest," and the 
like. These combined pronouns are similar in the two lan- 
guages, as the following examples will show: 

IROQUOIS. 

I-thee kon or konye 

I -him via, J da 

He-me raka, Jiaka 

He-us sonkwa 

Thou-him hi a 

Thou-them s'heia 

They-me ronkc, honke 

They -us yonke 



CHEROKEE. 

gunya 
tsiya 
akwa 
tcazvka 
hiya 
tegihya 
gunkwa 
teyawka 

The following list will show the similarity in other words of 

IROQUOIS. CHEROKEE. 



common occurrence 



Woman 


yungivc, ycoh (Seneca) 


ageyun 


Boy 


Jiaksaa 


at sat s a 


Girl 


yiksaa 


ay ay lit s a 


Fire 


otsile 


atsilun 


Water 


aw en 


am a 


Lake 


uniatale 


undalc 


Stone 


ononya 


nunya 


Sky 


kalonhia 


galurdoi 


Arrow- 


kaua 


gane 


Pipe 


kanufinawa 


gawfofinawa 


Beaver 


tsutayi (Huron) 


tawyi 


Great 


kowa 


ekwa 


Old 


a k ay on 


ogaynnli 



11 



The resemblance in most cases is here so great that the doubt 
which has existed as to the connection of the two languages 
may seem unaccountable. It must be stated, however, that 
these words are selected from a much larger list of vocables, 
in most of which the resemblance is not apparent. In some 
of them it exists, but greatly disguised by singular distortions 
of pronunciation, while in others the Cherokee words differ 
utterly from those of the Huron-Iroquois languages, and are 
apparently derived from a different source. There seems, in 
fact, to be no doubt that the Cherokee is a mixed language, 
in which, as is usual in such languages, the grammatical skele- 
ton belongs to one stock, while many of the words are supplied 
by another. As is usual, also, in mixed languages, a change 
in the phonology of the language has taken place. A lan- 
guage which two races combine to speak must be such as the 
vocal organs of both can readily pronounce. In the Huron- 
Iroquois dialects syllables frequently end with a consonant. In 
the Cherokee every syllable terminates either in a vowel, or in 
a nasal sound. In Iroquois, for example, five is wisk; in Cher- 
okee it becomes hiski, a word which in their pronunciation is 
divided hi-ski. The Iroquois raksot or liaksut, grandfather, is 
in Cherokee softened and lengthened to etiLtu. The probable, 
or at least possible, cause of this mixture, and the source from 
wh.ch the exotic element of the language may have been de- 
rived, will be hereafter considered. Meanwhile, the striking 
fact has become evident that the course of migration of the 
Huron-Cherokee family has been from the northeast to the 
southwest, that is, from eastern Canada, on the Lower St. Law- 
rence, to the mountains of Northern Alabama. 

Another important linguistic stock is that which is known as 
the Dakotan family, from the native name of the group or con- 
federacy called by the French missionaries and travellers the 
Sioux. This family occupies a vast extent of country between 
the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, and comprises many 
distinct communities, speaking allied though sometimes widely 
different languages. Among them are the proper Dakotas 
(including the Assiniboins), the Omahas, Osages, Kansas, 
Otos, Missouris, Iowas, Mandans, Hidatsas or Minnetarees, 
and several others. A single tribe, the Winnebagoes, speak- 
ing a peculiarly harsh and difficult language, dwelt east of the 
Mississippi, along the western shore of Lake Michigan; but 
they were commonly regarded by ethnologists as an offshoot 
of the prairie tribes, and as intruders into the territory of the 
Algonkins. Recent investigations, however, have disclosed 
the remarkable fact that tribes belonging to this family lived 
in early times east of the Alleghanies, and were found by 



12 



the first explorers not far from the Atlantic coast. The trav- 
ellers who met with them, incurious in such matters, did not 
take the trouble to record the language spoken by these tribes; 
and until recently they have been ranked by writers on Indian 
ethnology among the southern members of the Huron-Iroquois 
family. In 1870 the last survivor of one of these tribes was 
still living, at a great age, on the Reserve of the Six Nations, 
near Brantford. His people, the Tuteloes, who, with several 
allied tribes, had formerly dwelt in southern Virginia and east- 
ern North Carolina, had been driven from those regions early in 
the eighteenth century by the white settlers. Like their neigh- 
bors, the Tuscaroras, they had fled for refuge to the Iroquois, 
whom they accompanied in their subsequent flight into Canada. 
A vocabulary which I took down from his lips showed beyond 
question that his people belonged to the Dakotan stock. From 
him, and after his death from some intelligent Indians of mixed 
race — who, as children of Iroquois fathers by Tutelo mothers, 
still rank as Tuteloes, and speak the language fluently, — I ob- 
tained a sufficient knowledge of this speech to enable me to 
compare it, not merely in its phonology and its vocabulary, 
but also in its grammatical structure, with the Dakotan lan- 
guages spoken west of the Mississippi, so far as these are 
known, and more particularly with the language of the proper 
Dakotas (or Sioux) and the Hidatsa, or Minnetarees. These 
two languages have been carefully studied by able and philo- 
sophic investigators, the Rev. Stephen R. Riggs and Dr. Wash- 
ington Matthews, whose works are models of clear- and thorough 
exposition. The result of this comparison has been a convic- 
tion that the Tutelo language is undoubtedly the oldest form 
of speech thus far known in this family, and that, so far as a 
judgment can be deduced from this evidence, the course of 
emigration must be considered to have been from east to west. 
The fact that the western members of this linguistic family were 
by far the most numerous counts for nothing in such an inquiry. 
If mere numbers and extent of territory are to be deemed of 
any value in questions of this nature, we should have to derive 
the Polynesians from New Zealand, the Portuguese from Bra- 
zil, and the English from North America. 

The following list of words will show how the Tutelo voca- 
bles become contracted and distorted in the western Dakota 



speech: 



TUTELO. 



DAKOTA. 



Blood 

Knife 

Day 

Water 

Land 



ivayi 
mas&ni 
nihdnpi 
mdni 



avian 1 



is an. 



anpetu 

mini 

viaka 



13 





TUTELO. 


DAKOTA. 


Winter 


waneni 


wani 


Autumn 


tdrii 


ptan 


White 


asdni 


sari 


Black 


asepi 


sapa 


Cold 


SCI 111 


sni 


One 


nbnsa 


iv ants J ici 


Three 


Iduj 


yamni 
zaptafi 


Five 


kisah&ni 


Six 


akdspe 


shakpc 


Seven 


sdgomink 


shakozvirl 



The clearest evidence, however, is to be found in a compar- 
ison of the grammatical characteristics. It is an established 
law in the science of linguistics that, in any family of lan- 
guages, those which are of the oldest formation, — or, in other 
words, which approach nearest to the mother speech, — are the 
most highly inflected. The derivative or more recent tongues 
are distinguished by the comparative fewness of the grammat- 
ical changes. The difference in this respect between the Tutelo 
and the western branches of this stock is so great that they 
seem to belong to different categories, or genera, in the classi- 
fication of languages. The Tutelo may fairly be ranked 
among inflected tongues, while the Dakota, the Hidatsa, and 
apparently all the other western dialects of the stock, must 
rather be classed with agglutinated languages, — the variations 
of person, number, mood and tense being chiefly denoted by 
affixed or inserted particles. This statement applies more par- 
ticularly to the Hidatsa. In the Dakota some remnants of the 
inflected forms still remain. 

Thus, in the Hidatsa there is no difference, in the present 
tense, between the singular and the plural of the verb. In 
this language, also, there is no mark of any kind, even by 
affixed particles, to distinguish the present tense from the past, 
nor even, in the third person, to distinguish the future from 
the other tenses. Kiduoi may signify "he loves," "he loved," 
and "he will love." The Dakota is a little better furnished in 
this way. The plural is distinguished from the singular by 
the addition of the particle pi, and in the first person by pre- 
fixing the pronoun un, they, in lieu of zva or we, I. Thus, 
kaqkd, he binds, becomes kagkdpi, they bind; ivakdcka, I 
bind, becomes unkdckapi, we bind. No distinction is made 
between the present and the past tense. Kaqkd is both "he 
binds" and "he bound." The particle kta, which is not printed, 
and apparently not pronounced, as an affix, indicates the 
future. All other distinctions of number and tense are ex- 
pressed in these two languages by adverbs, or by the general 
context of the sentence. 



14 



In lieu of these scant and imperfect modes of expression, the 
Tutelo gives us a surprising wealth of verbal forms. The dis- 
tinction of singular and plural is clearly shown in all the per- 
sons, thus: 

opezva, he goes opehehla, they go 

oyapezva, thou goest oyapepua, ye go 
owapewa, I go maapew'a, we go 

Of tenses ther^e are many forms. The termination in ewa 
appears to be of an aorist or rather of an indefinite meaning. 
Opewa (from opa, to go), may signify both "he goes," and 
"he went." A distinctive present is indicated by the termina- 
tion oma, a distinctive past by oka, and a future by ta or eta. 
Thus from kte, to kill, we have waktewa, I kill him, or I killed 
him, wakteoma, I am killing him, and wakteta, I shall kill him. 
So ohdta, he sees it, becomes oJiatidka, he saw it formerly, and 
ohateta, he will see it. The inflections for person and number 
in the distinctively present tense, ending with oma, are shown 
in the following example: 

zvagindma, he is sick zvagindnhna, they are sick 

wayingindma, thou art sick wayinginbmpo , ye are sick 
wamegindma, I am sick mangzvaginoma, we are sick 
Besides these inflections for person, number a^d tense, the 
Tutelo has also other forms or moods of the verb, negative, 
interrogative, desiderative, and the like. Waktewa, I killed 
him, becomes in the negative form kiwaktena, I did not kill 
him. Yaktewa, thou killedst him, makes in the interrogative 
ioxm yaktezvo, didst thou kill him? Owapewa, I go, shows 
the combined negative and desiderative forms in kowapebina, 
I do not wish to go. None of these forms are found in the 
Dakota or Hidatsa verbs. 

In like manner the possessive pronouns, when combined 
with the noun, show a much greater fulness, and, so to speak, 
completeness, in the Tutelo than in the Dakota, as is seen in 
the following example: 





TUTELO. 


DAKOTA. 


Head 


pasui 


pa 


My head 


mimpasui 


map a 


Thy head 


yinpasui 


nip a 


His head 


epasui 


pa 


Our heads 


emankpasui 


ufipapi 


Your heads 


eyifikpasupid 


nipapi 


Their heads 


epasui-lei 


papi 



The linguistic evidence is to a certain extent supplemented 
by other testimony. It would seem at least probable that 
some of the western Dakotas at one time had their habitations 



15 



east of the Mississippi, and have been gradually withdrawing 
to the westward. The French missionary Gravier, in his 
"Relation" of the year 1700, affirms that the Ohio River was 
called by the Illinois and the Miamis the Akansea River, be- 
cause the Akanseas formerly dwelt along it. The Akanseas 
were the Dakota tribe who have given their name to the River 
and State of Arkansas. Catlin found reason for believing that 
the Mandans, another tribe of the southern Dakota stock, for- 
merly resided in the valley of the Ohio. The peculiar traces 
in the soil which marked the foundations of their dwellings 
and the position of their villages were evident, he affirms, at 
various points along that river.* 

Another very widely extended Indian stock is the Algonkin 
family, which possessed the Atlantic coast from Labrador to 
South Carolina, and extended westward to the Mississippi, and 
even, in the far north, to the Rocky Mountains, where some 
of the Satsika or Blackfoot tribes speak a corrupt dialect of this 
stock. Gallatin, who had studied their languages with special 
care, expresses the opinion (in his "Synopsis of the Indian 
Tribes," p. 29), that the northern Algonkins were probably the 
original stock of this family. In this northern division he in- 
cludes the tribes dwelling north of the Great Lakes, from the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence to the vicinity of the northern Dakotas 
and Blackfoot Indians. They comprise the numerous and 
widely scattered Montagnais (or Mountaineers), the Algonquins 
proper, the Ottawas, Chippeways, and Crees or Knistenaux. 
Whether they were really the elder branch, and whether the 
Micmacs of Nova Scotia, the Abenakis of Maine, the New 
England Indians, the Delawares, the Shawanoes, the Miamis, 
and the other southern and western Algonkins spoke derived 
or secondary languages, is a question which can only be decided 
by a careful comparison of words and grammatical forms. 
Mr. Trumbull, who has made this department of American 
linguistics peculiarly his own, would be better able than any 
one else to prosecute this line of research, and decide how far 
the opinion of Gallatin is sustained by the evidence of lan- 
guage. I may merely remark that in his valuable paper "On 
Algonkin Versions of the Lord's Prayer," in the Transactions 

♦After this paper was composed, I had the satisfaction of learning, at the meeting of 
the American Association in Montreal, from my friend the Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, of the 
Smithsonian Institution (who has spent several years among the western Dakota tribes in 
missionary labors, and in investigating their languages and social systems), that all the 
southern tribes of that stock— the Omahas, Otoes, Kansas, Iowas, Missouris, &c. — have a 
distinct tradition that their ancestors formerly dwelt east of the Mississippi. Miss Alice 
C. Fletcher, who had resided for a year among the Omahas, acquiring a knowledge of then- 
customs and traditions, had heard the same history. Whether the northern Dakotas have 
a similar tradition is not known. The former tribes all speak of the Winnebago (or Hotch- 
angara) tribe as their uncle, and declare that then* own tribes were originally offshoots from 
the Winnebagoes. A comparison of the letter-changes between the Winnebago and the 
western dialects (as shown in an interesting paper on the subject read by Mr. Dorsey before 
the Association), left no doubt of this derivation. The Winnebagoes evidently hold the 
same relation to the western tribes of this stock that the Mohawks bear to the western 



16 



of the American Philological Association for 1872, Mr. Trum- 
bull notices specially the soft and musical character of the lan- 
guages spoken by the western Algonkins, the Illinois and 
Miami tribes, — a softness arising from the fact that "the propor- 
tion of consonants to vowels in the written language is very 
small. Some words (he continues) are framed entirely of vow- 
els, e. g., uaiua, 'he goes astray;' uaui, or, with imperfect 
diphthongs, ua-ui, 'an egg;' uiuua, 'he is married;' in many 
others there is only a single semi-vowel or consonant proper 
in half-a-dozen syllables, e. g., aitiaakhti, 'there is yet room;' 
diapia, 'a buck.' In acueuatetie, 'it leans, is not upright/ 
we have but two consonants." 

This paucity of consonants is a well-known mark of that pho- 
netic decay which distinguishes derivative languages. The 
Hawaiian is one of the youngest of the Polynesian dialects. 
The "Vocabulary" of this language, compiled by the Rev. 
Lorrin Andrews, shows many hundred words composed either 
of vowels alone, or of vowels with but a single consonant. 
Aoaao, the sea-breeze, oiaio, truth, uiio, to question, hooieie> 
proud, maatiauzva, to trade, iriuiki, to glimmer, are words 
which may be compared with those quoted by Mr. Trumbull. 
Examples might also be drawn from our own speech, in which 
the German auge becomes eye, the German legen becomes lay, 
the German maclitig becomes miglity, and so on, in numerous 
instances too well known to need recital. That the Algonkin 
languages of the Atlantic coast, which, if not harsh, are cer- 
tainly hard and firm, abounding in consonants, should prove 
to be of more recent origin than the soft vocalic dialects of 
the west, is extremely improbable. 

The traditions of the northern Algonkins do not, according 
to the native historians, Peter Jones and George Copway, trace 
their origin further back than to a comparatively late period, 
when their ancestors possessed the country which they still 
hold north of Lakes Huron and Superior. The Crees, from 
time immemorial, have wandered over the wide region extend- 
ing between these lakes and Hudson's Bay, and stretching 
eastward to the coast of southern Labrador. It is only in recent 
times, as the Rev. Father Lacombe, the author of an excellent 
dictionary and grammar of their language, assures us, that 
they have found their way west of the Red River, and have 
expelled the Assiniboins and the Blackfoot tribes from a por- 

Iroquois nations, while the Tuteloes are to the Winnebagoes what the Hurons are to the 
Mohawks. That the emigration of the Dakota tribes from the east, which was inferred by 
me (after the discovery of the Tutelo language), from purely linguistic evidence, should be 
thus confirmed, must be regarded as a striking proof of the value of such evidence in eth- 
nological science. It is gratifying to know that through the well-directed efforts of Major 
Powell and his able collaborators, the students of this science, in its American department, 
will soon have a large mass of valuable evidence at their command, in the publications of 
the Smithsonian Bureau of Ethnology. 



17 



tion of the territory extending from that river to the Rocky 
Mountains. The Lenni Lenape, or Delawares, alone possessed 
what seems to have been a genuine tradition, going back for 
many generations. Of this tradition some further notice will 
hereafter be taken. 

The southern region of the United States, extending from 
the eastern coast of Georgia to the Mississippi River, was oc- 
cupied chiefly by a fourth linguistic stock, the Chahta-Muskoki 
family, comprising the Creeks or Muskhogees, the Chickasas, 
the Choctaws, and some minor tribes. The language of the 
easternmost of these, the Creeks, differs so widely from those 
of the western tribes, the Choctaws and Chickasas, that Galla- 
tin, though noticing resemblances sufficient to incline him to 
believe in their common origin, felt obliged to classify them as 
belonging to separate stocks. Later investigations leave no 
doubt of their affinity. The differences, however, are much 
greater than those which exist between the different languages 
of the Algonkin family, or between those of the Huron-Iro- 
quois group. They may rather be compared with the differ- 
ences which are found between the Cherokee and the Iroquois 
languages. There is an evident grammatical resemblance, 
along with a marked unlikeness in a considerable portion of 
the vocabulary. The natural inference, as in the case of the 
Cherokee, is that many of the words of these differing lan- 
guages have been derived from some foreign source. This is 
the opinion expressed by Dr. D. G. Brinton, than whom no 
higher authority on this point can be adduced, in his interest- 
ing paper "On the National Legend of the Chahta-Muskokee 
Indians," published in the Historical Magazine for February, 
1870. It has seemed to me not unlikely that these languages 
and the Cherokee owed the foreign element of their vocabu- 
lary to the same source, and that this source was the language 
of the people who formerly occupied the central region of the 
United States, and who have been the object of so much 
painstaking investigation, under the name of "The Mound- 
builders. " 

The mystery which so long enveloped the character and fate 
of this vanished people is gradually disappearing before the 
persistent inquiries of archaeologists. The late lamented Pres- 
ident of our Association, the Hon. L. H. Morgan, in his work 
on the "Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines," 
has shown the evidences of resemblance in the mode of life 
and social condition of the Moundbuilders to those of the "Vil- 
lage Indians" of New Mexico and Arizona. From various indi- 
cations, however, it would seem probable that their political 
system had been further developed than that of these Village 



18 



Indians, and that, as in the Mexican Valley and in Peru, the 
greater portion of the population was combined under one 
central authority. Dr. Brinton, in a well-reasoned essay on 
"The Probable Nationality of the Moundbuilders, " printed in 
the American Antiquarian for October, 1881, has pointed 
out the fact that the tribes of the Chahta-Muskoki family were 
mound-builders in recent times, and that their structures were 
but little inferior in size to those of the extinct population of 
the Ohio Valley. He sees reason for concluding that "the 
Moundbuilders of the Ohio were in part the progenitors of the 
Chahta tribes. " Dr. Brinton's extensive research and his cau- 
tion in deciding give great weight to his conclusions, to which 
I would only venture to suggest some modifications drawn 
from the evidences of tradition and language. 

Mr. Morgan remarks that "from the absence of all tradition- 
ary knowledge of the Moundbuilders among the tribes found 
east of the Mississippi, an inference arises that the period of 
their occupation was ancient. " For the same reason he thinks 
it probable that their withdrawal was gradual and voluntary; 
for "if their expulsion had been the result of protracted war- 
fare, all remembrance of so remarkable an event would scarcely 
have been lost among the tribes by whom they were dis- 
placed." Mr. Morgan's profound studies in sociology left him 
apparently little time to devote to the languages and traditions 
of the Indians; otherwise he could not have failed to notice 
that the memories retained by them of the overthrow and ex- 
pulsion of their semi-civilized predecessors are remarkably full 
and distinct. We have these traditions recorded by two 
native authorities, the one Iroquois, the other Algonkin, each 
ignorant of the other's existence, and yet each confirming the 
other with singular exactness. 

The remarkable historical work of the Tuscarora Cusick, 
owing to its confused and childish style, and its absurd chro- 
nology, has received far less attention than its intrinsic value 
deserves. Whenever his statements can be submitted to the 
test of language, they are invariably confirmed. He tells us 
that in ancient times, before the Iroquois separated from the 
Hurons, "the northern nations formed a confederacy, and 
seated a great council-fire on the River St. Lawrence. " This 
confederacy appointed a high chief ("a prince," as Cusick calls, 
him), as ambassador, who "immediately repaired to the south, 
and visited the great emperor, who resided at the Golden City, 
a capital of the vast empire. " The mention of the Golden City 
has probably induced many readers of Cusick's book to rele- 
gate this story to the cloudland of mythology. But it must be 
remembered that to the Indians of North America one metal was 
as remarkable and as precious as another. Copper was, in fact, 



19 



their gold. Among the Moundbuilders, copper held the pre- 
cise place which gold held in ancient Peru. Of hammered 
copper they irrade ornaments for their persons and their 
dresses, and wrought their most valued implements. In one 
grave-mound in Athens county, Ohio, Professor E. B. An- 
drews found about five hundred copper beads, forming a line 
around the space which had once held the body of the former 
owner. "When we remember (he writes) that the copper of 
the Moundbuilders was obtained from the veins of native cop- 
per near Lake Superior (a long way off from southern Ohio), 
where it was quarried in the most laborious manner; that it 
was hammered into thin sheets, and divided into narrow strips, 
by no better smith's tools, so far as we know, than such as 
could be made of stone, and then rolled into beads, it is evi- 
dent that the aggregate amount of labor involved in the fabri- 
cation of the beads in this mound would give them an im- 
mense value. "* 

Cusick's "Golden City" was probably a city abounding in 
the precious red metal of the Lake Superior mines. "After a 
time," he proceeds, "the emperor built many forts throughout 
his dominions, and almost penetrated to Lake Erie. This pro- 
duced an excitement. The people of the north felt that they 
would soon be deprived of the country on the south side of 
the Great Lakes. They determined to defend their country 
against the infringement of foreign people. Long, bloody 
wars ensued, which, perhaps, lasted about one hundred years. 
The people of the north were too skilful in the use of bows 
and arrows, and could endure hardships which proved fatal to 
a foreign people,. At last the northern people gained the con- 
quest, and all the towns and forts were totally destroyed, and 
left in a heap of ruins. " 

This tells the whole story, in the plainest language. There 
is not the slightest reason for supposing that this narrative is 
a fabrication. If it were, it would be the only discoverable 
invention in the book. But Cusick's work bears throughout 
the stamp of perfect sincerity. There is nothing in it drawn 
from books, or, so far as can be discovered, from any other 
source than native tradition. His story, moreover, receives 
confirmation, as has been said, from an independent and even 
hostile quarter. The Delaware Indians, who styled themselves 
Lenni Lenape, had a tradition closely agreeing with that of 
the Iroquois. This, too, has been overlooked or undervalued, 
through a manifest geographical error in those who first re- 
ceived and attempted to interpret it, — the error of supposing 

♦Report of the Peabody Museum of American Archseology and Ethnology for 1880, p. 61. 



20 



that only one river could bear among the Indians the very 
common name of the "great river." 

The well-known missionary author, Heckewelder, commen- 
ces his "History of the Indian Nations," with the account 
which the Lenni Lenape give of the migrations that brought 
them to the region on the banks of the Delaware River, where 
they were found by the white colonists. The story, as he relates 
it, is entirely credible, and corresponds with the Iroquois tra- 
ditions, except in one respect. The Lenape and the Iroquois 
are represented as coming not from the north, but from the 
far west, crossing "the Mississippi" together, and falling with 
their united forces on the people whom they found in the Ohio 
valley. These were a numerous people, called the Allighewi 
or Tallegwi, who dwelt in great fortified towns. After a long 
and destructive war, in which no quarter was given, the Alli- 
ghewi were utterly defeated, and fled "down the Mississippi." 
The conquerors then divided the country between them, the 
Iroquois choosing the region along the Great Lakes, while the 
Lenape took possession of the country further $otith. The tra- 
dition is recorded at much greater length, and with many addi- 
tional particulars, in a paper on the "Historical and Mytho- 
logical Traditions of the Algonquins," by the distinguished 
archaeologist, E. G. Squier, read before the Historical Society 
of New York, in June, 1848, and republished lately by Mr. 
Beach in his "Indian Miscellany." This paper comprises a 
translation of the Walum-Olum, or "bark-record" of the Lenni 
Lenape, a genuine Indian composition, in the Delaware lan- 
guage. It is evidently a late compilation, in which Indian 
traditions are mingled with notions drawn from missionary 
teachings. The purely historical part has, like Cusick's narra- 
tive, an authentic air, and corrects some errors in the minor 
details of Heckewelder's summary. The country from which 
the Lenape migrated was Shinaki, the "land of fir-trees," not 
in the west, but in the far north, — evidently the woody region 
north of Lake Superior. The people who joined them in the 
war against the Allighewi (or Tallegwi, as they are called in 
this record), were the Talamatan, a name meaning "not of 
themselves," whom Mr. Squier identifies with the Hurons, and 
no doubt correctly, if we understand by this name the Huron- 
Iroquois people, as they existed before their separation. The 
river which they crossed was the Messusipu, the "Great River," 
beyond which the Tallegwi were found, "possessing the east." 
That this river was not our Mississippi is evident from the fact 
that the works of the Moundbuilders extended far to the west- 
ward of the latter river, and would have been encountered by 
the invading nations, if they had approached it from the west, 



1 



21 



long before they arrived at its banks. The "Great River" was 
apparently the upper St. Lawrence, and most probably that 
portion of it which flows from Lake Huron to Lake Erie, and 
which is commonly known as the Detroit River. Near this 
river, according to Heckewelder, at a point west of Lake St. 
Clair, and also at another place just south of Lake Erie, some 
desperate conflicts took place. Hundreds of the slain Tallegwi, 
as he was told, were buried under mounds in that vicinity. 
This precisely accords with Cusick's statement that the people 
of the great southern empire had "almost penetrated to Lake 
Erie" at the time, when the war began. Of course, in coming 
to the Detroit River from the region north of Lake Superior, 
the Algonkins would be advancing from the west to the east. 
It is quite conceivable that, after many generations and many 
wanderings, they may themselves have forgotten which was 
the true Messusipu, or Great River, of their traditionary tales. 

The passage already quoted from Cusick's narrative informs 
us that the contest lasted "perhaps one hundred years." In 
close agreenae-nt with this statement, the Delaware record 
makes it endure during the terms of four head-chiefs, who in 
succession presided in the Lenape councils. From what we 
know historically of Indian customs, the average tenure of such 
chiefs may be computed at about twenty-five years. The fol- 
lowing extract from the record gives their names and probably 
the fullest account of the conflict which we shall ever possess : 

" Some went to the east, and the Tallegwi killed a portion; 
Then all of one mind exclaimed, War ! War ! 

The Talamatan (not-of-themselves) and the Nitilowan, [allied north-peo- 
ple], go united (to the war.) 

Kinnepehend (Sharp-looking)was the leader, and they went over the river, 

And they took all that was there, and despoiled and slew the Tallegwi. 

Pimokhasuwi (Stirring-about) was next chief, and then the Tallegwi were 
much too strong. 

Tenchekensit (Open-path) followed, and many towns were given up to him. 
Paganchihilla was chief, and the Tallegwi all went southward. 
South of the Lakes they (the Lenape) settled their council-fire, and north of 
the Lakes were their friends the Talamatan (Hurons ?) 

There can be no reasonable doubt that the Allighewi or 
Tallegwi, who have given their name to the Alleghany River 
and Mountains, were the Moundbuilders. It is also evident 
that in their overthrow the incidents of the fall of the Roman 
Empire were in a rude way repeated. The destiny which ulti- 
mately befell the Moundbuilders can be inferred from what we 
know of the fate of the Hurons themselves in their final war 
with the Iroquois. The lamentable story recorded in the 
Jesuit "Relations," and in the vivid narrative of Parkman, is 



i 



22 

well known. The greater portion of the Huron people were 
exterminated, and their towns reduced to ashes. Of the sur- 
vivors many were received and adopted among the conquerors. 
A few fled to the east and sought protection from the French, 
while a larger remnant retired to the northwest, and took shel- 
ter among the friendly Ojibways. The fate of the Tallegwi was 
doubtless similar to that which thus overtook the descendants 
of their Huron conquerors. So long as the conflict continued, 
it was a war of extermination. All the conquered were massa- 
cred, and all that was perishable in their towns was destroyed. 
When they finally yielded , many of the captives would be spared 
to recruit the thinned ranks of their conquerors. This, at least, 
would occur among that division of the conquering allies which 
belonged to the Huron-Iroquois race; for such adoption of 
defeated enemies is one of the ancient and cardinal principles 
of their well-devised political system. It is by no means un- 
likely that a portion of the Moundbuilders may, during the 
conflict, have separated from the rest and deliberately united 
their destiny with those of the conquering race, as the Tlascal- 
ans joined the Spaniards in their war against the Aztecs. 
Either in such an alliance or in the adoption of captive ene- 
mies, we may discern the origin of the great Cherokee nation, 
a people who were found occupying the southeastern district 
of the Moundbuilders' country, having their chief council-house 
on the summit of a vast mound which they themselves as- 
cribed to a people who preceded them,* and speaking a language 
which shows evident traces of its mixed origin, — in grammar 
mainly Huron-Iroquois, • and in vocabulary largely recruited 
from some foreign source. 

Another portion of the defeated race, fleeing southward 
"down the Mississippi," would come directly to the country 
of the Chahta, or Choctaws, themselves (as Dr. Brinton re- 
minds us) a mound-building people, inferior probably in civi- 
lization to the Allighewi, but superior, it may be, in warlike 
energy. With these the northern conquerers would have no 
quarrel, and the remnant of the Allighewi would be allowed to 
remain in peace among their protectors, and, becoming in- 
corporated with them, would cause that change in their lan- 
guage which makes the speech of the Choctaws differ as much 
from that of their eastern kindred, the Creeks or Muskhogees, 
as the speech of the Cherokees differs from that of their north- 
ern congeners, the Iroquois. 

If this theory is correct, we might expect to find some simi- 
lar words in the languages of the Cherokees and the Choc- 
taws. These languages, so far as their grammar is concerned, 



* Bartraru's Travels, p. 367. Reports of the Peabody Museum, vol. 2, p. 76. 



23 



belong to entirely different stocks. The difference is as com- 
plete as that which exists between the Persian and Turkish 
languages. It is well known that these last-named languages, 
though utterly unlike in grammar, have a common element in 
the Arabic words which each has adopted from a neighboring 
race. We are naturally led to inquire whether similar traces 
exist in the Cherokee and the Choctaw of a common element 
derived from some alien source. The comparative vocabula- 
ries given in Gallatin's work comprise chiefly those primitive 
and essential words which are rarely borrowed by any lan- 
guage, such as the ordinary terms of relationship, the names of 
the parts of the human body and the most common natural 
objects, the numerals, and similar terms. There are, however, 
some words, such as the terms for some articles of attire, the 
names of certain animals, and a few others, which in most 
languages are occasionally taken from a foreign source. Thus 
the Saxon-English has borrowed from the Norman-French 
element the words for boot and coat, for cattle and squirrel, 
for prisoner and metal. It is, therefore, interesting to find 
that the vocabularies of the Cherokee and the Choctaw, differ- 
ing in all the more common words, show an evident similarity 
in the following list: 

CHEROKEE CHOCTAW and CHICASA 

Shoes lasulo shulush 

Buffalo yanasa kfcnn-tibsh, yennush 

Fox tsula cliula 

Prisoner ayzmki yuka 

Metal atelun tulle, toll 

These resemblances, occurring only in words of this pecu- 
liar class, can hardly be mere coincidences. A more extensive 
and minute comparison will be needed to establish beyond 
question the existence of this foreign element common to the 
two languages, and the extent to which each has been modified 
by it; but the indications thus shown seem to confirm the con- 
clusions derived from the clear and positive traditions of the 
northern Indians. Every known fact favors the view that 
during a period which may be roughly estimated at between 
one and two thousand years ago, the Ohio valley was occupied 
by an industrious population of some Indian stock, which had 
attained a grade of civilization similar to that now held by the 
Village Indians of New Mexico and Arizona; that this popu- 
lation was assailed from the north by less civilized and more 
warlike tribes of Algonkins and Hurons, acting in a temporary 
league, similar to those alliances which Pontiac and Tecumseh 



24 



afterwards rallied against the white colonists; that after a long 
and wasting war the assailants were victorious; the conquered 
people were in great part exterminated; the survivors were 
either incorporated with the conquering tribes or fled south- 
ward and found a refuge among the nations which possessed 
the region lying between the Ohio valley and the Gulf of 
Mexico; and that this mixture of races has largely modified 
the language, character, and usages of the Cherokee and Choc- 
taw nations.* 

It will be noticed that the evidence of language, and to some 
extent that of tradition, leads to the conclusion that the course 
of migration of the Indian tribes has been from the Atlantic 
coast westward and southward. The Huron-Iroquois tribes 
had their pristine seat on the lower St. Lawrence. The tradi- 
tions of the Algonkins seem to point to Hudson's Bay and the 
coast of Labrador. The Dakota stock had its oldest branch 
east of the Alleghanies, and possibly (if the Catawba nation 
shall be proved to be of that stock), on the Carolina coast. 
Philologists are well aware that there is nothing in the lan- 
guage of the American Indians to favor the conjecture (for it is 
nothing else), which derives the race from eastern Asia. But 
in western Europe one community is known to exist, speaking 
a language which in its general structure manifests a near like- 
ness to the Indian tongues. Alone of all the races of the old 
continent the Basques or Euskarians of northern Spain and 
southwestern France have a speech of that highly complex and 
polysynthetic character which distinguishes the American lan- 
guages. There is not, indeed, any such positive similarity in 
words or grammar as would prove a direct affiliation. The 
likeness is merely in the general cast and mould of speech; 
but this likeness is so marked as to have awakened much atten- 
tion. If the scholars who have noticed it had been aware of 
the facts now adduced with regard to the course of migration 
on this continent, they would probably have been led to the 
conclusion that this similarity in the type of speech was an 
evidence of the unity of race. There seems reason to believe 
that Europe, — at least in its southern and western portions, — 
was occupied in early times by a race having many of the 

* I am gratified to find that the views here set forth with regard to the character and fate 
of the Moundbuilders are almost identical with those expressed by Mr M. E. Force, in his 
excellent paper, entitled ' To what Race did the Moundbuilders belong ?" read before the 
Congres International des Amcricanistes, at Luxembourg in 1877. The fact that so judi- 
cious and experienced an inquirer as Judge Force, after a personal examination of the 
earthworks, has arrived, on purely arch geological grounds, at the same conclusions to which 
I have been brought by the independent evidence of tradition and language, must be re- 
garded as affording strong confirmation of the correctness of these conclusions. Mr. J. P. 
MacLean, in his valuable work on " the Moundbuilders," shows (p, 144) that the strong and 
skillfully planned line of fortesses raised by the ancient residents of Ohio was plainly 
erected against an enemy coming from the north, and that the warfare was evidently a 
long-protracted struggle, ending suddenly in the complete overthrow and destruction or 
expulsion of the defenders. These facts coincide exactly with the tradition recorded by 
Cusick. 



25 



characteristics, physical and mental, of the American aborig- 
ines. The evidences which lead to this conclusion are well set 
forth in Dr. Dawson's recent work on "Fossil Man." Of this 
early European people, by some called the Iberian race, who 
were ultimately overwhelmed by the Aryan emigrants from 
central Asia, the Basques are the only survivors that have 
retained their original language; but all the nations of south- 
ern Europe, commencing with the Greeks, show in their phys- 
ical and mental traits a large intermixture of this aboriginal 
race. As we advance westward, the evidence of this infusion 
becomes stronger, until in the Celts of France and of the Brit- 
ish Islands, it gives the predominant cast to the character of 
the people.* 

If the early population of Europe were really similar to that 
of America, then we may infer that it was composed of many 
tribes, scattered in loose bands over the country, and speaking 
languages widely and sometimes radically different, but all of 
a polysynthetic structure. They were a bold, proud, adven- 
turous people, good hunters and good sailors. In the latter 
respect they were wholly unlike the primitive Aryans, who, as 
was natural in a pastoral people of inland origin, have always 
had in the east a terror of the ocean, and in Europe were, 
within historic times, the clumsiest and least venturous of nav- 
igators. If communities resembling the Iroquois and the 
Caribs once inhabited the British islands and the western coasts 
of the adjacent continent, we may be sure that their fleets of 
large canoes, such as have been exhumed from the peat-depos- 
its and ancient river-beds of Ireland, Scotland, and France, 
swarmed along all the shores and estuaries of that region. 
Accident or adventure may easily have carried some of them 
across the Atlantic, not merely once, but in many successive 
emigrations from different parts of western Europe. The dis- 
tance is less than that which the canoes of the Polynesians were 
accustomed to traverse. The derivation of the American pop- 
ulation from this source presents no serious improbability what- 
ever, t 

On the theory, which seems thus rendered probable, that 
the early Europeans were of the same race as the Indians of 

*"The Basque may then be the sole surviving relic and -witness of an aboriginal -west- 
ern European population, dispossessed by the intrusive Indo-European tribes. It stands 
entirely alone, no kindred having yet been found for it in any part of the -world. It is of an 
exaggeratedly- agglutinative type, incorporating into its verb a variety of relations 
-which are almost everywhere else expressed by an independent word. " — "The Basque 
forms a suitable stepping-stone from -which to enter the peculiar linguistic domain of the 
New World, since there is no other dialect of the Old World -which so much resembles in 
structure the American languages."— Professor Whitney, in " The Life and Growth of 
Language," p. 258. 

■(■The distance from Ireland to Newfoundland is only sixteen hundred miles. The dis- 
tance from the Saudwich Islands to Tahiti (whence the natives of the former group affirm 
that their ancestors came), is twenty-two hundred miles. The distance from the former 



26 



America, we are able to account for certain characteristics of 
the modern nations of Europe, which would otherwise present 
to the student of anthropology a perplexing problem. The 
Aryans of Asia, ancient and modern, as we know them in the 
Hindoos, the Persians, and the Armenians, with the evidence 
afforded by their history, their literature, and their present 
condition, have always been utterly devoid of the sentiment of 
political rights. The love of freedom is a feeling of which 
they seem incapable. To humble themselves before some supe- 
rior power, — deity, king, or brahmin, — seems to be with them 
a natural and overpowering inclination. Next to this feeling 
is the love of contemplation and of abstract reasoning. A 
dreamy life of worship and thought is the highest felicity of 
the Asiatic Aryan. On the other hand, if the ancient Euro- 
peans were what the Basques and the American Indians are 
now, they were a people imbued with the strongest possible 
sense of personal independence, and, resulting from that, a 
passion for political freedom. They were also a shrewd, practi- 
cal, observant people, with little taste for abstract reasoning. 

It is easy to see that from a mingling of two races of 
such opposite dispositions, a people of mixed character would 
be formed, very similar to that which has existed in Europe 
since the advent of the Aryan emigrants. In eastern Europe, 
among the Greeks and Sclavonians, where the Iberian element 
would be weakest, the Aryan characteristics of reverence and 
contemplation would be most apparent. As we advance west- 
ward, among the Latin and Teutonic populations, the sense of 
political rights, the taste for adventure, and the observing, 
practical tendency, would be more and more manifest; until at 
length, among the western Celts, as among the American In- 
dians, the love of freedom would become exalted to an almost 
morbid distrust of all governing authority. 

If this theory is correct, the nations of modern Europe have 
derived those traits of character and those institutions which 
have given them their present headship of power and civiliza- 
tion among the peoples of the globe, not from their Aryan 
forefathers, but mainly from this other portion of their ances- 
try, belonging to the earlier population which the Aryans 
overcame and absorbed. That this primitive population was 
tolerably numerous is evident from the fact that the Aryans, 
particularly of the Latin, Teutonic, and Celtic nations, lost in 
absorbing it many vocal elements and many grammatical in- 

islands to the Marquesas group, the nearest inhabited land, is seventeen hundred miles. 
The canoes of the Sandwich Islands (as we are assured by Ellis, in his "Polynesian 
Researches"), "seldom exceed fifty feet in length." In the river-beds of France, ancient 
canoes have been found exceeding forty feet in length. One was more than forty-five 
feet long, and nearly four feet deep. See the particulars in Figuier's "Primitive Man," 
Appleton's edit., p. 177. 



27 



flections of their speech. They gained, at the same time, the 
self-respect, the love of liberty, and the capacity for self-gov- 
ernment, w hich were unknown to them in their Asiatic home. 
Knowing that these characteristics have always marked the 
American race, we need not be surprised when modern re- 
searches demonstrate the fact that many of our Indian com- 
munities have possessed political systems embodying some of 
the most valuable principles of popular government. We shall 
no longer feel inclined to question the truth of the conclusion 
which has been announced by Carli, Draper, and other philo- 
sophic investigators, who affirm that the Spaniards, in their 
conquest of Mexico, Yucatan, and Peru, destroyed a better 
form of society than that which they established in its place. 
The intellectual but servile Aryans will cease to attract the 
undue admiration which they have received for qualities not 
their own; and we shall look with a new interest on the rem- 
nant of the Indian race, as possibly representing this nobler 
type of man, whose inextinguishable love of freedom has 
evoked the idea of political rights, and has created those insti- 
tutions of regulated self-government by which genuine civili- 
zation and progress are assured to the world. 



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